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ON 



THE KECOGNITION 



OF THE 



SOUTHERN CONFEDERATION. 



BY 



JAMES SPENCE, 



AUTHOE OF " THE AMEEICAN UNION," AND THE " S." LETTERS TO THE " TIMES ' 
ON AMEEICAN AFFAIRS. 



THIRD EDITION. 



%. 







LONDON : 
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 

SOLD ALSO BY WEBB AND HUNT, LIYEEPOOL. 

1862. 






LOKDON: PRINTED ET W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 



ON THE EECOGNITION 



SOUTHERN CONFEDERATION. 



The time lias arrived when it becomes tlie duty 
of the governments of Europe to acknowledge that 
another power is added to the family of nations. 
For a considerable period the Southern States of 
America have maintained an established govern- 
ment, which is manifestly in accordance with the 
free will of their people. The effort made to pre- 
vent their independence is obviously a failure, and 
if continued can only waste more human life to no 
purpose. At this moment, the general issue of the 
second Northern campaign can plainly be seen, and 
the question arises whether those who are vitally 
interested, and who have the sufferings of a coming 
winter in prospect, should remain quiescent whilst 
another army shall be formed and drilled for a 
third attempt. If there be any step calculated to 
bring about peace, that step should be taken whilst 

B 2 



the minds of all rational men in the North are in 
doubt as to the policy of continuing the war. At 
such a time when elation of spirit is subdued by 
disappointment; when, in either course of action, 
to stop or persevere, the difficulties are equally 
great ; when judgment is on the balance, uncertain 
to which side to incline — it is at such a time that 
an influence from without will tell with decisive 
weight, and turn the scale. If, on the other hand, 
we wait till another army shall have been recruited, 
disasters will fade from recollection, as that of 
Bull's Run passed away ; with new apparent 
strength new hopes will arise and generate a fresh 
brood of illusions. Contractors, fiindholders, 
schemers, and enthusiasts will again pull the wires ; 
a " sensation " press will arouse another excite- 
ment, and the present opportunity will be lost, to 
the cruel injury of our workmen, and the irrepa- 
rable injury of America. 

Yet the step to be taken is of so grave import- 
ance that it behoves us to weigh it well in all its 
bearings. Modern history has well illustrated the 
evil of moving too rapidly, and although it is in- 
cumbent on every government to be guided in the 
main by the interests of its people, it is no part 
of our practice to omit, or hold as secondary, what 
may plainly appear to be our duty. I take the 
position that it is now a duty, an obligation that 
has devolved upon us, to recognize the de facto 
. government of the South. Is it the fact that the 



Southern States form a distinct community, and 
have over them a government approved by them- 
selves, and reasonably executing the functions of 
administration ? If this be so, the well-established 
practice of modern times requires us to admit that 
to be a fact which is a fact. And the principle of 
neutrality also demands it. Foreign powers are 
not the friends of any section of a people. Northern 
or Southern, but of the whole of it. If it divide 
in two, by acts to which they are not parties, 
neutrality requires them to remain the friends of 
both. But their official relations were with one 
government only, and if it succeed in putting down 
the movement they have nothing to say. On the 
other hand, if they fail to suppress the movement 
within a reasonable time — within, for instance, a' 
period named by itself as sufficient — and if the 
result be the continuance and consolidation of the 
second government, with, so far as human judgf 
ment extends, the power to maintain itself — then 
the original principle of neutrality requires that 
we recognize the existence of both these govern- 
ments. We cannot refuse to do so on the ground 
that they are at war, for if Austria and Prussia 
were at war, this would not enable us to deny the 
independent existence of either. Nor have we a 
right to do so on the plea that the new government 
ought not to have come into being. To listen to this 
argument would be to sit as judges in a quarrel. 
Few governments, if any, exist in the world, whose 



(i 



origin was perfectly legitimate. International law 
has no cognizance of questions of this kind, and 
abjures the inquir}^ When an important com- 
munity has established a government, it may have 
to dispute a counter assertion of divine right with 
its immediate adversary, but not with us ; we have 
no more right to inquire why it has come into exist- 
ence than to question of a man what right he had 
to be born. 

For some time past we have admitted the ex- 
istence of the Southern government as a belligerent. 
Not of necessity, but as a matter of reason, this 
involves their recognition if they maintain them- 
selves in the war. For the term belligerent cannot 
be applied to pirates or mere insurgents ; it admits 
the existence of a government acting by the rules 
and entitled to the rights of war. It is, therefore, 
in its essence a provisional recognition, and one 
that is provisional only because the issue is yet 
doubtful. The principle involved in a formal re- 
cognition is conceded by it, and all that really 
remains is to perfect officially what we have already 
initiated. The practice of Europe is established 
beyond any manner of doubt, and I cannot find an 
instance where the belligerent right of a people has 
been admitted without this being followed by the 
recognition of its independence. Mr. Whiteside, in 
his eloquent speech on Mr. Lindsay's motion, quotes 
Sir. James Mackintosh as saying of recognition, " It 
implies no guarantee, no alliance, no aid, no ap- 



prova] of revolt, no intimation of opinion concern- 
ing the justice or injustice of the circumstances by 
Avhich it has been accomplished. The tacit recogni- 
tion of a new state, not being a judgment for the 
new government or against the old, is not a devia- 
tion from perfect neutrality or a cause of just offence 
to the dispossessed ruler." But a writer of greater 
authority in American eyes is Wheaton, the head of 
their expounders of international law. Admitting 
that the secret assistance rendered by France to 
the United States in their revolt gave just ground 
of complaint to Great Britain, he goes on to express 
a doubt whether " had they maintained good faith, 
a treaty of commerce or even the eventual alliance 
between France and the United States could have 
furnished any just ground for a declaration of war 
against the former by the British Government." 
And in discussing the general question of recogni- 
tion, Wheaton gives it as the law of nations that 
" when a revolted province or colony has declared 
and shown its ability to maintain its independence, 
the recognition of its sovereignty by other foreign 
States is a question of policy and prudence only." 
Its effect upon the discontented party is well de- 
scribed by President Jackson, in his message to 
Congress of 20th December, 1836, as being, "a 
transient estrangement of good-will in those against 
whom we have been, by force of evidence, com- 
pelled to decide." Upon no point is the practice of 
this country more thoroughly established. We 



8 

acknowledged as de facto governments the Nether- 
lands in their revolt from Spain, Portugal also from 
Spain, Greece from Turkey, Belgium from Holland, 
the Italian duchies from the family of Austria;, the 
Legations and other provinces from the Pope, 
Mexico and other colonies from Spain, and Texas 
from Mexico. To this list other countries may add 
that of the United States from ourselves. And 
in every one of these instances our recognition 
occurred under precisely the circumstance that 
now exists — that is, before it was assented to by 
the older government. 

But the practice of the United States is more 
immediately in point than any other, and they have 
invariably been the foremost, the most eager to 
acknowledge each de facto government that has 
presented itself. Nay, in the case of the recogni- 
tion of the French republic, this eagerness was laid 
down by them as a kind of duty. " It is the duty 
of the United States government always to be the 
first to recognize a new government." In the case 
of Texas, the province of a sister republic, they 
preceded recognition by bringing about the very 
course of events that led to the revolt. In the 
case of Hungary they expressed beforehand with 
an extreme of alacrity their intention to recognize 
if the opportunity should come within their reach. 
On that occasion Mr. Webster observed in a state 
paper, ''Questions of prudence arise in reference to 
new States brought by successful revolutions into 



9 

the family of nations, but it is not required of 
neutral powers to await the recognition of the 
parent States." Within the last thirty years eight 
or ten new States have established independent 
governments within the colonial dominions of Spain, 
and the same thing has been done by Belgium and 
Greece. All these governments were recognized by. 
some of the leading powers of Europe, as well as 
by the United States, before they were acknow- 
ledged by the States from which they had sepa- 
rated themselves. It is indeed notorious that the 
United States, both in teaching and in practice, 
have taken the lead in advocating the prompt re- 
cognition of new powers. By what rule of logic 
can they forbid others to act upon the principle 
they have so sedulously taught ? They have been 
active and able expounders of international law : it 
is of the essence of that law that it shall apply to 
all people alike. The moment a power is permitted 
th lay down rules to be applied to others, but not 
itself, international law is at an end. If it were 
praiseworthy of the United States to be first in the 
recognition of new powers, that government will 
be meritorious, by their rule, which is first in the 
recognition of the Southern Union. 

Belgium and Holland bore in some points a 
striking similarity to the Federal republic of the 
United States. They were a federal kingdom — the 
one mercantile, the other agricultural; they were 
united for that which was the main object of the 



10 

Union — mutual defence. But they were joined under 
our own auspices, and we were under a direct and 
grave responsibility to the Dutch crown, by virtue 
of the most important and solemn treaty of modern 
times. In the face of all this we not only recog- 
nized without delay the independence of Belgium, 
but forcibly intervened and were parties to the ac- 
tion of France in bombarding the citadel of Antwerp 
and rendering the revolution successful. Here, 
then, we take an active part in the formation of a 
federal kingdom, yet the moment it appears that 
the nations cannot remain -together to the happiness 
of both, we forcibly intervene to break up the work 
of our own hands. Is the Federal republic of the 
United States a more sacred edifice than the 
Federal kingdom of the Netherlands ? Is it our 
duty to treat the views of Mr. Abraham Lincoln 
with a deference so entirely omitted in the case of 
the King of Holland ? Or are we to intervene by 
force of arms in Federal affairs where the parties 
are weak, and to shrink from the possibility of 
giving offence where one of them is supposed to be 
strong ? If this be the meaning of a non-interven- 
tion policy, it may be a convenient one, but it is 
one that reflects little credit on any country. 

It has been observed that in the case of the 
Spanish colonies we deferred our recognition for a 
long term of years. This is perfectly true; but 
why was it so ? We have acknowledged every 
de facto government established in modern times ; 



11 



this is a rule to which hitherto we have made no 
exception. But there has been a wide diversity in 
the time taken for consideration, and in some cases 
it has been prolonged. On a study of the subject 
it will be found that here again there has been a 
guiding principle — namely, the magnitude or insig- 
nificance of the interests we had at stake. We 
looked on for years whilst the Spanish colonies 
were in revolt, because our interests were so slight 
as to permit this. But when the governmeut of 
France was overthrown by the coup d'etat we did 
not hesitate for one week, but instantly acknow- 
ledged the new state of things, because the interests 
at stake were so vast as to render delay dangerous 
to the peace of Europe. Apply this, our invariable 
rule, to the present case. Are the interests now 
jeopardized such as will permit us to look on with 
folded arms for a series of years, or are they so 
great and pressing as to require prompt decision ? 
To this there can be one reply only ; but before 
pursuing this branch of the inquiry it may be con- 
venient to consider the objectious to recognition 
which are brought forward. Of these, that which 
appears to have the greatest force at this moment 
is the argument that any action on our part will 
provoke the undying hostilit}^ of the Northern 
power. 

But that hostility cannot be provoked, for it exists 
already. From, the earliest history of the United 
States it has always been there, either active or 



12 

latent, and some politicians have made a trade of 
pandering to it. This we deplore, but we cannot 
prevent the existence of that which exists, which 
will exist, and which neither action or inaction on 
our part can avert. We are the competitors, the 
rivals, of the North; in every direction, commer- 
cial, manufacturing, maritime, we form the obstacle 
to its desire of ranking as the first power in the 
world. This we cannot help, and we must pursue 
the even tenor of our way without regard to it. 
Throughout this contest we have shut our eyes to 
political interests so obvious that any child could 
see them. We adopted from the first a line of strict 
neutrality, the only one befitting in a domestic 
quarrel. The effect of this, in its results, has been 
highly favourable to the North, 3^et it has been 
repaid by virulent abuse. A grievous insult was 
offered to our flag, and gave us an opportunity, 
thrust into our hands by fortune, to break up the 
Union and the blockade. In place of availing our- 
selves of it, despatches were written in terms, firm 
indeed but friendly, and accompanied by instruc- 
tions of the utmost delicacy. History will find in 
those despatches not so much the proofs of an in- 
dignant spirit as of a kindly one. 

On this subject what says an eminent authority, 
Mr. Henry Ward Beecher ? " When our rebellion 
broke out, if there was any nation under heaven 
that we looked to for sympathy and help, it was 
the mother country, England. But how did she 



13 

treat us ? She sympathized with our enemies, 
and when we were all engaged with the rebels, and 
had as much as we could do on our hands, she 
kicked up that contemptible fuss about the Trent 
and took our rebel citizens from us. Oh, it was 
mean — it was mean ! And now what are we going 
to do about it ? When we get this affair off our 
hands and have time to attend to other matters shall 
we give England what she deserves ? " Here is a 
minister of the gospel of peace educating his people 
in this spirit — so ignorant of human nature as to 
expect that a *^ Mother" would be pleased to see a 
big son trampling upon a weaker one — so incapable 
of manly sentiment as to be unable to conceive that 
we found it a hindrance, and not an inducement, 
that the North was then powerless — so exact a 
judge of what is mean as to denounce on our part 
the conduct he would have applauded to the skies if 
pursued by his own country upon a similar event. 
Yet even this is tame when compared with the 
revilings of Wendell Phillips, another authority, or 
the ribaldry of Brownlow, who was enabled to de- 
light educated audiences of New York and Boston, 
because the Southerners held him to be too con- 
temptible to be worth the cost of keeping any 
longer in gaol. Passing by such as these, let us 
take a calm writer whose views are commented upon 
in the ' Times ' of the 28th May : " There is to-day 
one sentiment in which the whole American people, 
North and South, seem to agree, and that is a sen- 



14 

timent of hostility to England. The South is full 
of it and fierce in its expression. The North is 
equally full of it and silent. We state this as a 
truth and we regret it profoundly. With an im- 
mense army, a triumphant general, a splendid mili- 
tary equipment, an iron-clad navy already superior 
to any in the world, our people are impressed with 
an idea of their prowess. . . . England will ter- 
ribly mistake the tone and temper of the American 
people if she imagines that the Mason and Slidell 
affair has passed\out of our minds." 

Here then exists the very evil which we are told 
not to bring into existence. Whether we, our 
press, or writers, are in some measure to blame for 
it is not now under consideration ; I speak of the 
simple fact. The causes that mainly lead to it and 
sustain it in the North are ineradicable. None of 
them affect the South : we are their best customers, 
not their competitors ; we have no adjoining province 
that tempts their desires ; they regard our aristo- 
cratic institutions with admiration, not with hatred. 
It is true that if trampled down in this contest, 
could such a thing occur, they would then be im- 
pelled by bitter animosity to this country, because 
they would ascribe their subjugation, not without 
some show of reason, to our truckling to the North 
in the matter of the blockade. But when an inde- 
pendent power, no feeling of the kind can exist. 
Their obvious interest will be to cultivate with us 
the closest commercial relations, and to retain our 



15 

goodwill as a counterpoise to their formidable 
neighbours. Here is a continent of which one half 
is full of ineradicable hostility, sometimes latent 
but ever there; the other half anxious to be 
friendly. What kind of statesmanship would that 
be which should spread over the whole this hos- 
tility, inevitable in half of it ? 

But it may be observed that beyond the mere 
question of existing sentiment, the recognition of 
the South would be an actual cause of war. Why ? 
It has been seen that the recognition of a de facto 
Grovernment is not a casus belli, but an act con- 
sistent with the most perfect neutrality. Nay, in 
order to be really neutral, we must take this step. 
The Washington government tells us that it either 
rules in Georgia or has the right to do so ; the 
Eichmond government tells us that it both rules 
there and has the right to do so. Can that be neu- 
trality which listens to the one and declines to hear 
the other ? Mr. Lincoln might, indeed, declare war, 
as he may do at any time with or without assigning 
a pretext, but there is nothing in our recognition of 
the South which would afford a pretext. In the 
case of the ' Trent,^ too, there w^ere very violent 
threats, which, when the day arrived to test them, 
subsided in a moment. 

It is essential to distinguish between the press of 
the United States and the people. In this country 
the press is a mirror in which is reflected the public 
opinion of the country. In the North this is not 



16 



so. Those papers which have the largest sale and 
are best known in this country, aim at making 
themselves saleable by " sensation " writing, by a 
style which spurns reason, logic, and truth. The 
inimitable character of Jefferson Brick is daily per- 
formed before our eyes, but the vast majority of the 
Northerners are not Jefferson Bricks ; on the con- 
trary, they are well-meaning men, diligently em- 
ployed in their own pursuits, and those of intellect or 
information, avoiding politics with disgust. They 
cannot step out of their sphere to correct the press 
or give us their real sentiments. But if a war with 
this country were seriously proposed, self-pre- 
servation would arouse them. It is asserted that 
we are dependent on the North for food ; a shallow 
delusion. If the North were excluded from our 
knowledge, there are regions in Eastern Europe 
amply sufficient to supply all the grain we need to 
import. It would be less cheap ; but against this 
drawback there is the advantage that it would be 
supplied by those who are willing to take our 
manufactures in exchange. But there is really an 
abject dependence in another direction. The 
Northern States have no other exports of the least 
importance than agricultural products, grain, and 
provisions. Cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, naval 
stores — these are all products of the Slave States. 
Now, in the event of a war with this country, w^here 
is the North to sell its grain ? We have an option 
in buying, but where would be its option in selling ? 



IT 

With the South it is at war ; Canada is a compe- 
titor, and would also be at war ; from Europe it 
would be blockaded. Hence the industry of the 
great majority — of seven-eighths of the area of the 
country— would be instantly paralyzed. The people 
of the West know this well enough ; and, although 
they take no concern in what they know to be mere 
bluster about war, if it came to be in prospect as a 
reality they would speak out for their own existence. 
In the war of 1814 the New England States found 
their commerce ruined, on which they threatened to 
secede from the Union, and took, for the purpose, 
the preliminary step of calling a convention at Hart- 
ford. Had we continued that war for another year 
it would probably have broken up the Union. Now, 
that Union is already broken, its prestige is gone 
for ever as a unity, secession is in every man's 
mouth, a representative of New York has discussed 
in Congress the policy of that city seceding from all 
its neighbours, in California it is regarded as sim* 
ply a question of time, and the effect of a prospect 
of war with this country would be that the agricul" 
tural States of the West would threaten to separate 
from the monopolizing and manufacturing States of 
the East. 

It is also forgotten by those who imagine that 
recognition might involve a risk of war, that no 
one recommends the step as one of separate action 
on our part. It is notorious that, for a long time 
past, we have restrained the action of France. It 

c 



18 

is true that tlie French Government have not 
ofiBcially requested the co-operation of our own, but 
it is the fact that its views on this subject have been 
unofficially conveyed, and are well known. Hence 
we incur the responsibility not only of delaying to 
recognize the established government of the Southern 
States, but also of practically impeding another 
power desirous to do so. It may be assumed as 
beyond question that recognition, on our part, could 
be made conjointly with France, and, doubtless, 
other powers. Hence any risk of war, as a result, 
would be that of the North, with its hands already 
well occupied, declaring war without any just pre- 
text against the two great naval powers of the 
world. Such a thing it is idle to consider. The 
people of New York and Boston, only the other 
day, were thrown into a paroxysm of alarm at the 
idea that a single vessel, the Merrimac, might pay 
them a visit. . To suppose that, by any act of their 
own, they would invite the visit of the combined 
fleets of France and England is too improbable a 
thing to be worthy of discussion. Separate action, 
on our part, would undoubtedly be met by the 
Northern press with an earnest shout of defiance ; 
but we cannot suppose that this people are so far 
gone in folly as to defy a joint action of European 
powers. 

Let us proceed to examine the objection to recog- 
nition which is based on the fact that slavery exists 
throughout the Southern States. This affects the 



19 



judgment, or rather the sentiment, of many excel- 
lent men. There is a vague impression, that in 
recognizing the South we afford some kind of coun- 
tenance to slaver}''. How so ? We admit the 
independence of Spain and Brazil ; does this coun- 
tenance slavery ? The South is termed by one 
writer a " slave power." Was not the Union ,a 
" slave power " — would not a reconstructed Union 
be a " slave power " ? If it be the desire of any 
writer to abolish slavery, let him consider if the 
hope of doing so will not be greater when the 
South stands alone, comparatively weak, anxious 
for the fellowship of other powers, than if standing 
strong and defiant in copartnership with the power 
of the North. The question of recognition is one 
wholly political. We are in cordial alliance with 
Turkey, yet slavery exists there, and along with it 
a social system criminal by our law and repugnant 
to our creed. We cannot deal with one country 
upon one principle and with another country on 
another. Either our Government must undertake 
to act as universal policeman, and inquire into the 
internal affairs of all other States, or it must abstain 
from this entirely. The pretence that the object 
of this war was to extinguish slavery has been 
thoroughly exposed. It is but justice to say, that 
neither the Washington Government nor the people 
of the North, as a people, are open to any charge 
of hypocrisy on this head. They have consistently 
asserted that their object was and is to maintain 

c 2 



\ 



20 

the Union, its slavery and all, its cotton, tobacco, 
rice, and the means of producing them. So^ far, 
indeed, from this being a war for the extinction 
of slavery, it is a war to prevent its going out of 
the Union. 

But this is not the place to discuss the slavery 
question, except so far as it affects the immediate 
point of recognition. In this sense the question is 
narrowed to this — Which is more likely to end it, 
the reconstruction of the Union or the independence 
of the South ? We all want to end it. The idea 
of men doomed to live without freedom is painful 
to us as the idea of men doomed to live without 
air. The age has ' gone past for the sale of men as 
cattle. But any argument on the evils of slavery, 
both moral and economical, would be idle when, on 
this point, we are all of one mind. The simple 
question is— How shall we end it ? If the North 
were to subdue the South, they could then, of course, 
abolish the system ; but we know, first, that they 
cannot subjugate the South, and, secondly, that if 
they did so the last thing they would do would be 
to destroy the value of a property obtained at so 
terrible a cost. But they may be driven to declare 
emancipation as an act of war, as a measure of 
revenge, of the meanest and foulest spite. What 
would be the effect of this ? Simply a smile of 
derision on the part of the Southerners. Mr. Lin- 
coln has already issued a proclamation perhaps 
sincere, though generally regarded as a manoeuvre 



21 

to divide the Southern people. It has been treated 
with contempt even in the States, Maryland and 
Kentucky, that are entirely at his command. 
What, then, the value of a proclamation of his in 
States at open and successful war with him ? And 
would the reconstruction of a Union afford any 
promise ? But the Union was a slave-owning power 
and the Constitution is a slave-owner's protection. 
Under it slavery has thriven in the very highest 
degree ; under it the slave-trade was protected by 
the " star-spangled banner ;" under it the system 
once lowly and of doubtful repute has become 
strong and defiant ; under it every imaginable safe- 
guard to the institution would he eagerly conceded 
by the North. 

The truth is, slavery can never be abolished in 
the States except by the will of the Southern 
people. There is no impossibility in devising a 
plan of emancipation, gradual, accompanied by laws 
to prevent squatting, to prevent freedom from 
degenerating into idleness and barbarism, to supply 
the free labour instead of the slave labour of the 
negro, to ameliorate the condition of the one race 
without detriment — nay, with ultimate benefit to 
the other. Not, indeed, without grave difficulties 
can the status of four millions of mankind be 
altered *, but it is a possible thing ; and where 
there's a will there's a way. The problem really is 
how to bring about this will. Now, so soon as the 
Southern Union becomes an independent power. 



22 

slavery ceases to be a political question ; it is no 
longer a battle-cry in the heated strife of parties ; 
it is no longer connected with a struggle nominally 
for the territories, really for national existence ; it 
may cease to excite the revilings of fanaticism, and 
to stir up the hatred which they arouse. Deprived 
of these stimulants, the people of the South will be 
enabled, for the first time in this generation, to 
look upon it calmly — -to weigh the arguments of 
reason, to hear the admonitions of friendship, and 
to feel the influence of that power which is the 
voice of civilization — public opinion' — a power 
which neither kings nor republics can defy. In 
the Union, slavery as a system identifies the 
Southerner with his own land. Remove it, and 
you obliterate the line of demarcation. The South 
would become to the North what Delaware is to 
Maryland, or New Jersey to New York. Right 
or wrong, it is essential to his national existence. 
Once out of the Union, we have no more reason to 
doubt that slavery would soon be altered into 
serfdom, and freedom eventually follow, than that 
truth will prevail in the end over error. In Bengal 
a contented peasantry exists and prospers as black 
as the negro, as incapable of amalgamation with 
ourselves. What exists in the Eastern may exist 
in the Western world. We, as a people, planted 
slavery in America. If it be now a crime, it may 
be said to us, " Let him that is without sin cast 
the first stone." Our duty in this matter is so to 



23 

act that we may enable the people of the South to 
deal calmly with this evil. Let us not add to the 
injury we inflicted upon them by denying the only 
rational prospect of escape from it, which is, 
through their independence. 

There is an objection to our moving in this 
matter which tells with force on many minds. It 
would express itself thus: "These people are kins- 
men of ours who are quarrelling amongst them- 
selves ; let us keep out of so painful an affair, and, 
above all, let it never be said that we derived 
any advantage from it." Now, in the first stage 
of events these sentiments were highly proper ; for 
it would have been unworthy had we sought any 
advantage, political or commercial, by fomenting 
the causes of this convulsion. We did nothing of 
the kind. "We neither elected Mr. Lincoln, nor 
approved of the course taken on that event by 
South Carolina. On the contrary, the great majority 
in this country held it to be an act of folly or of 
passion. None will dispute that, in the first in- 
stance, the preponderance of feeling was in favour 
of the North. Whose fault is it that this has 
entirely changed ? The constitution of the United 
States had been little studied here, and numbers 
were influenced by the sound of the word "rebel," 
so absurdly applied by the North to the co-equal and 
sovereign States of the South. Without word, will, 
or deed on our part, these events have come to 
pass. Having come to pass, to shrink from dealing 



24 

with them now would not be a disinterested, but a 
highly selfish policy. It would really be to avoid 
risk of annoyance or responsibility of judgment, by 
folding our arms, and permitting things to drift. 
The interests at stake are too critical for a doke- 
far-niente policy. We cannot at convenience place 
ourselves in the position of Portugal or Wirtem- 
burgh, or disappear from the stage when the part 
we have to play is difficult. We owe a duty to the 
North, but we also owe a duty to the people of the 
South, which we cannot refuse to discharge on the 
ground that it may be troublesome to ourselves or 
distasteful to others. 

It has been asked, what we should have said 
had Americans come forward to acknowledge Ire- 
land or India when in rebellion ? But historical 
parallels are ridiculous when the only resemblance, 
like that between Macedon and Monmouth, is that 
both begin with the same letter, or are called by 
one name. If the Irish people had ever re- 
volted, formed a well-organized government, and 
defeated our armies in the field, so as to render it 
clear that they could sustain the position they had 
taken, it would have been the duty of the Americans 
to acknowledge their government. Whenever this 
shall occur they will be welcome to do so; but 
nothing like it has yet been recorded in history, 
and is not probable now, seeing that we have just 
as much reason to turn rebels as they. The American 
idea that Irishmen are inevitably rebellious is about 



25 

as exact as tlie old French belief that Englishmen 
were always committing suicide or selling their wives 
in market places. As to India, it is strange that 
any one should come forward to compare the 
groundless mutiny of pampered and murderous 
soldiers with the movement of a great and unani- 
mous people ; a movement directed in every State 
by its legislature, and in each instance submitted 
to the deliberation and decision of the most solemn 
authority known in American politics — a conven- 
tion of the sovereign people of the State. 

It has also been contended that the Southern 
States, instead of seceding, ought to have proposed 
an amendment of the Constitution in the manner 
provided by it. Where was it possible to obtain 
the majority required? To have attempted that' 
which no rational man could hope to carry, would 
have been mere waste of time. They were parties 
to a Federal compact, from which they openly 
announced their determination to retire if a given 
event should happen. That event did happen, and 
they carried out their determinatioUj in the exercise 
of their sovereign rights, and using all the forms, 
solemnities, and powers in withdrawing from the 
Union which were employed in forming it. Of 
what use could it be to discuss modifications of the 
terms of a partnership when men were resolved to 
retire from it altogether ? 

Another complaint frequently made is that there 
was some kind of treachery in obtaining arms 



26 

through Mr. Floyd, then a member of the Washing- 
ton Cabinet. This is an exceedingly simple matter 
when explained. The arms manufactured in the 
North are divided periodically amongst all the 
States, in the ratio of their respective quotas of 
militia. Of late years the militia service had been 
greatly neglected in the South, in many parts of 
which it had fallen altogether into abeyance. In 
consequence they had not applied for their propor- 
tion of those arms, which remained in the Northern 
storehouses, set apart and marked off for the States 
to which they belonged. All that Mr. Floyd did 
was to send them to those to whom they were due, 
or rather a part of them, for at the outbreak of the 
war a large quantity of artillery belonging to the 
Southern States or fortresses was in the North, and 
remained there. This fact will show how little 
truth there is in the assertion that the movement 
had long been secretly prepared. 

With equal injustice the blame is charged upon 
the South of being the aggressors in this scene of 
bloodshed. It is true, that on declaring their 
independence, they took possession of the Custom- 
houses and other public property in their States 
precisely as the Northerners did when they re- 
volted from us. They sent Commissioners to 
Washington to arrange all matters of this kind. 
They abstained from occupying Fort Sumter, a 
position of the first importance. In the midst of 
this, and in breach of an agreement, Anderson 



27 



moved from Fort Moultrie into Fort Sumter, an 
act of war and of treachery on the part of the 
North. Even this was endured, but when it was 
found that whilst their Commissioners were amused 
at Washington, a secret expedition had sailed for 
Charleston and was then off the harbour^ to have 
permitted the adversary to strengthen himself in 
their midst would have been to declare themselves 
poltroons, Yattel observes, " A war may be de- 
fensive in its principles though offensive in its 
operations, as where attack is the best means of 
repelling a menaced invasion. He who first renders 
the application of force necessary is the aggressor, 
though he may not be the one who first actually 
applies it." This is precisely what occurred. The 
arrival of a Federal fleet off Charleston rendered 
the application of force necessary in self-protection, 
but the Washington government which sent that 
fleet was the aggressor, not those who were driven 
by it to the application of force to resist it. 

Having examined the objections to recognition 
let us now consider the reasons why that measure 
should be taken. In the first place, it is matter of 
necessity to Europe that this war should cease. 
Not in this country only, but in France, Belgium, 
Switzerland, in every manufacturing region, cotton 
has become a necessity of industrial life. Yattel 
observes, " Every nation has an undoubted right 
to provide for its own safety, and to take due 
precaution against distant as well as impending 



28 

dangers. The riglit of self-preservation is para- 
mount to all other considerations." There can 
be no kind of self-preservation more urgent than 
that of preserving great masses of people from 
deprivation of the means of existence. It would 
be consistent with international law for Europe 
forcibly to end the blockade. It could not do 
so rightfully on the plea of inconvenience or loss, 
but it would be justified in doing so on the ground 
of necessity. No event, similar in its consequences 
and magnitude, has occurred in history. If a grain 
country be blockaded there are others in which corn 
may be purchased ; but, in this case, except to a 
very limited extent, there is no choice or alterna- 
tive. America has hitherto looked on our com- 
plete dependence upon her for cotton with very 
great complacency, and cannot now complain of 
the consequences that flow from it. 

The opinion has been expressed that we may 
endure the existing difficulty with patience in view 
of the advantage India will derive from it. Those 
who are suffering find it but cold comfort to be told, 
'' it is an ill wind that blows nobody good." And 
it may well be questioned, whether a sudden ex- 
tension of the growth of cotton in India, based upon 
a foundation we know to be temporary, might not 
produce disaster instead of advantage. There are 
social and permanent causes now promoting the 
progress of India — the opening of railways, the 
spread of steam navigation on the rivers, the right 



29 

to hold land in fee simple, the infusion of European 
energy — these are causes that will safely and yet 
enormously extend our Indian commerce. Nor 
will Indian cotton ever fall back into its old 
condition of disrepute, for the prejudice against 
working it is gone. Formerly but few spinners 
would use it ; in future, with the majority^ it will 
be a mere question of price. Nor is it likely, that, 
in the Southern States, the former rate of increase 
in growth will be kept up, or that, in future, the 
cost of production will be free from the effects of 
taxation ; these are elements that will promote 
steady progress, but if a sudden expansion should 
occur, though convenient for the moment, it would 
be ^injurious to India in the end. At the worst no 
one can expect this war to last more than another 
year, and whenever it end, at least four millions of 
bales of cotton, and more probably five millions, 
would be suddenly liberated. The quantity de- 
stroyed is, after all, but a small proportion of last 
year's crop, and if we estimate the present crop 
only at one-third we shall reach the quantity named. 
What would be the effect of throwing this mass upon 
a market already filled with Indian cotton ? It must 
be sold ; if ten cents cannot be obtained eight cents 
must be taken ; if eight cents cannot be obtained 
six cents must be taken. It must be sold at some 
price or other, which, combined with its superior 
quality, will force it into the market, or, in other 
words, drive the Indian cotton out. This process 



30 

would clearly be disastrous to the inferior staple. 
We should see what has been seen before, New 
Orleans cotton at M, per lb. in Liverpool, and 
Surat cotton driven down to a price, which, after 
deducting the heavy charges upon it, leaves to the 
grower a pittance he cannot live upon. Any efforts 
now made in India would bring cotton here to meet 
a redundant supplj^ and a disastrous fall in prices. 
There will permanently remain advantages to India' 
from this convulsion, but to increase her production 
suddenly and greatly on the strength of a demand we 
know to be temporary, would simply be to extend a 
building over what we know to be a quicksand. 

The stocks at Liverpool and Havre have spun 
out beyond anticipation, but this is not a subject 
for unalloyed satisfaction. They have lasted because 
mills have been closed, or have worked short time, 
which means that human suffering has been spun 
out too. The patient endurance of the operatives 
has been great, and benevolence will be active. 
But the men sa}^, '* We don't want bread and water, 
we want work ; we are sick of walking up and 
down the streets, or breaking stones for the parish." 
No Poor Law can cure this. There is but one cure 
for it and that is the termination of the war. And 
all this suffering might be viewed more calmly if it 
were the inevitable result of war. It is not so. If 
the North possessed all that boasted superiority of 
strength, surely it could subdue the South in fair 
contest on the open field. Surely, if the object were 



31 

attainable those 600,000 men and all those gun- 
boats were sufficient? If unattainable by such 
means the attempt was hopeless with or without 
the addition of a blockade. As the resource of a 
power weaker by land it would have been excus- 
able, but as that of one prepared to crush all before 
it, it was superfluous, a mere arrogant contempt for 
the sufferings of Europe. There is no clause, power, 
or principle in the constitution that warrants this 
employment of the Federal fleet. The question of 
taking power to coerce a State was considered in 
the convention that framed it, and deliberately 
excluded. The Federal executive has power to act 
on individuals only, on the guilty or the accused, 
but none to act against one of the sovereign States 
of which it is the agent. We suffer from a mere act 
of despotic power committed in contempt of the 
constitution and of those who framed it, the ablest 
of whom, Madison and Hamilton, declared with pro- 
phetic vision how futile such measures would be, 
and what they would produce. 

At the present date the stock of cotton in the 
whole of Europe maybe estimated at 230,000 bales, 
against 1,650,000 on hand at the same period of 
last year. The consumption of Europe at the old 
rate required more than 80,000 bales per week. 
Eeduced as it now is, it absorbs the supplies arriving, 
and gradually diminishes the remnant of stock. The 
day approaches when all will be gone, and the trade 
will be restricted to the arrivals, which will not 



32 



exceed ODe-fourth of its actual wants. Three- 
fourths of the subsistence of the operatives will be 
abstracted from them. They may continue to 
endure this with patience, from month to month, 
from bad to worse. There is no fear of actual 
starvation — they will not be allowed to perish like 
fish left dry upon a bank. But are we to feel the 
less, or to act with less decision because they are 
patient and silent? In other days there would 
have been riots and incendiarism, and we should 
have been very stirring to remove the cause. 
Ought we to be less earnest in behalf of suffering 
that is without reproach ? 

The distress that now afflicts the cotton trade is 
about to be extended to other branches of our 
industry. The Morrill tariff, framed by the manu- 
facturers of Pennsylvania and New England, was 
purposely designed to exclude our manufactures. 
The new tariff Bill, a worthy supplement to it, is 
entirely prohibitory in practice to all our leading 
exports. Take, for instance, railway iron. The 
duty imposed is 70 per cent, on its present value, 
but this duty must be paid in gold, which adds 20 
on the 70 per cent , and may increase any day. In 
addition, there is the cost of transport to New York, 
making the entire protection enforced against this 
article at least 110 per cent. It would be ridiculous 
to suppose that our manufacturers could compete 
with those of Pennsylvania with such a millstone 
round their necks. In two or three months the 



33 

effect of this tariff will be felt in the stoppage 
of our exports of all those articles it is to our 
advantage to supply. Having excluded us entirely 
from half the continent, this measure will now 
exclude all our important manufactures from the 
other half. In the face of this Northerners are 
surprised we have little sympathy with them. Now 
what is the character of our relations with the 
Americans ? We have no aid to seek from them, 
no province to covet, no courtesy to expect. All 
we have to do with them is to trade with them. 
And whilst half the continent is anxious to trade 
with us on terms just and beneficial, the other half 
strains its ingenuity to exclude and injure us. To 
which of these should we incline ? We have done 
some generous, some foolish things as a nation, but 
we are not utterly void of common sense. 

And passing from the interests of commerce, there 
is a voice that appeals to Europe, more solemn than 
the tenets of international law, or the calculations 
of trade — the voice of humanity. It is plain that 
neither of these excited combatants can subdue the 
other. It is clear that this terrible sum of life, 
sufferings and sorrow, now lavished, is lavished in 
vain. In the recent engagements before Richmond, 
apart from the dead, there would probably be 
12,000 wounded on each side. Over those twenty 
miles would be stretched more than 20,000 muti- 
lated human beings, crying in vain for water to 
quench that agonizing thirst — crawling like crushed 

D 



34 

worms into tlie swamps to shelter tliem from the 
fierce heat of that scorching sun. The mind sinks 
from the effort to gauge the depth of all that anguish, 
of shattered hope, of young brave life thrown there 
as water thrown aside to waste. Even to this day, 
in deep recesses of those woods one might find 
haggard forms that roots and herbs have enabled 
not to live but miserably to lengthen out their 
dying. And beyond this there spreads a circle far 
and wide of wives, sisters, orphans, of old men that 
will now go down in sorrow to the grave. And 
this is but one spot. Over a range of 1,500 miles, 
hundreds of thousands are busy at this work — • 
peopling the soil with the dead, and the cities with 
the maimed, and the air with pestilence, and the 
future with passions of hatred or revenge. With 
all this we have no right to interfere. But if there 
be any step we have an indisputable right to take, 
and if it tends to terminate so sad and iniquitous a 
strife — then, if in doubt whether and when to act, 
we cannot omit to remember that our kinsmen are 
perishing by the edge of the sword, are swept away 
by passions that have overmastered reason, and that 
an effort on our part may expel the fiend that tears 
them, and bring back to them the blessing of 
peace. 

That all this suffering is futile may be seen by 
a brief review of the progress of the war. From 
the commencement of it English writers showed 
that the subjugation of a country so vast, so diffi- 



35 



cult in its natural features, and so dangerous in its 
climate, when defended by a brave and resolute 
people, was an undertaking such as no modern army 
had ever accomplished or could achieve. The only 
similar attempt, that of Napoleon on Russia, had 
failed terribly; not, as some have supposed, from 
cold, but in reality from causes existing in this case, 
and chief of them the vastness of the country. The 
elements which in the end would govern the result 
have been developed as was expected ; for though 
no one can foresee what incidents may occur in war, 
or how the tide of success may waver to and fro, 
there are influences discernible from the first which 
ultimately decide a contest of this character. The 
first campaign of the North may be regarded as 
an experimental attempt which ended in disaster. 
After the battle of Bull's Run, it was well known 
to the Southern generals that Washington could be 
taken. Emissaries came out from the city to urge 
the entrance of the victorious troops, and Beaure- 
gard was urgent for the step. With great wisdom 
President Davis forbade it, on the grounds that as a 
military measure it would be a source of weakness, 
whilst it would supply a stimulus to the energies of 
the North it was most desirable to avoid. After 
that event, eight months were occupied by the 
Federals in raising an army of gigantic magnitude, 
and none will be slow to acknowledge the energy 
and skill in organization they displayed. That 
army of 600,000 men is indeed a wonderful proof 

D 2 



36 

of creative and administrative power. Is it possible 
that now, when laden with debt and drained of 
venturous spirits, another effort can be made greater 
or as great ? Yet that effort has resulted in failure 
so decided that no one could assert that Wash- 
ington is now free from danger. What prospect 
can there be then in repeating what has proved to 
be ineffectual ? The campaign opened with a series 
of small successes, insignificant in military import- 
ance, and injurious in their cost of money and men_, 
but of value in one sense. The power that sustains 
this war on the part of the Xorth is the power of 
excitement. It is said they are fighting for nation- 
ality, from motives of patriotism, and many of them 
think this. But if so, where were these for three 
months whilst State after State was departing, when 
all in the North had made up their minds to the 
change, and every speaker was denouncing with 
indignant eloquence the shedding of brother's 
blood ? If reason or a sense of justice and right 
were the moving impulse, why did actual dismem- 
berment by the secession of one State after another 
find all apathetic ? An event occurred, in com- 
parison very trivial, the capture of Fort Sumter, 
without loss of life or any affront to the flag greater 
than it had already endured. But that event 
supplied this stimulus — excitement. The successes 
on the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia fed and 
sustained this, kept up the money-market, and 
affected European opinion, but only for a time. 



37 

In the western campaign the Federals were 
favoured by two causes they could hardly have 
anticipated. First, it was the conviction of the 
Eichmond government that Europe would stop the 
war. In this belief those efforts and sacrifices were 
spared which otherwise would have been made, and 
it resulted that no force was prepared in the west 
worthy the name of an army. Clear evidence of 
this may be found in the report of General A. S. 
Johnson, who answered unjust reproaches with his 
life, on the field of Shiloh. The other cause was a 
remarkably wet season, which raised the rivers far 
beyond their usual height. This enabled the 
Federals to ascend the Tennessee, and to penetrate 
the Cumberland river with vessels of war even as 
far as Nashville. It enabled them to effect a 
passage to the rear of No. 10 Island, and by sweep- 
ing away the boom below New Orleans, enabled 
them to pass the forts which they had failed to 
silence. The whole success on the Mississippi has 
resulted from this cause ; not a single position on 
that river has been captured by actual fighting. 
On land, the invasion was irresistible in its onset, 
but, aroused from the error into which they had 
fallen, the people of the South soon rallied ; within 
a few weeks, after apparently hopeless dispersion, 
they brought an army into the field, and at Shiloh 
gained a victory which had well-nigh been decisive. 
From Corinth, Beauregard inflicted upon Halleck 
more than the loss of a defeat by employing him for 
two months in sending his men into hospital from 



38 

the swamps through which he was toiling. This 
process completed, the Southern general suddenly 
disappeared with plans bewildering to his antago- 
nist, the results of which are now appearing. The 
latest accounts render it probable that the whole 
State of Tennessee will be regained^ and but a rem- 
nant be left, at the close of the campaign, of that 
Federal army which commenced it so triumphantly. 
The invasion of Arkansas has already closed by the 
expulsion of Curtis. 

In the east. General Hunter, after meditating the 
reduction of Savannah for two months, during which 
it grew stronger every day, at last abandoned the 
project in despair. It is a curious fact that in 
excavating ground for the fortifications, the people 
of Savannah came upon four of the guns used by us 
in our successful defence of that city against a 
combined French and American force, and found 
them in such excellent preservation that they re- 
bored them, and mounted them on one of the forts, 
with the old G. E. upon them. From Savannah, 
Hunter removed his force to Charleston, and there 
suffered at once a decisive defeat. Both these 
cities had been fortified by General Lee, the ablest 
engineer officer of the old army ; and although either 
might have been endangered by a vigorous attack 
in spring, the opportunity was lost and cannot be 
regained. Loss of time is of all things fatal to an 
expedition. When we ascended the Dardanelles, 
indecision for forty-eight hours converted success 
into failure. Nothing has been squandered in 



39 

greater profusion by all the Federal comman- 
ders. 

In Yirginia the Northern army broke up from the 
Potomac, to all appearance irresistible. Advancing 
on Manassas the enemy disappeared, and M'Clellan, 
instead of pursuing him to Richmond, returned to 
Washington. He had then an excellent base in 
Acquia Creek on the Potomac, but eighty miles 
from Richmond, with a straight line of railway to 
that city. Instead of adopting this route, the 
Federal army was divided and the main body 
transported to the peninsula, which of all the roads 
to Richmond is that least promising to an invader. 
Here, when a month had been expended before 
Yorktown, the unexpected fall of New Orleans 
determined the Southern generals to concentrate 
their forces and to withdraw from the reach of gun- 
boats. Evacuating Yorktown, their rear-guard 
inflicted at Williamsburg severe loss on its pur- 
suers and captured from them nine guns. Arrived 
at length before Richmond, M'Clellan had the power 
to place himself on the line of railway to Frede- 
ricksburg. He would thus have been within three 
hours of the Potomac, in communication with the 
forces on the Shenandoah; he would have com- 
manded the resources of Central Yirginia, and, se- 
lecting a healthy position, he might have awaited 
such reinforcements as he required. Instead of 
this he proceeded to bury himself in the swamps of 
the Chickahominy — the most pestiferous position to 
be found in the State. These, it is true, sheltered 



40 

him from serious danger if attacked; but what 
business has a general to threaten a city if afraid to 
encounter its garrison ? Here the battle of Fair 
Oaks destroyed one of his divisions and ruined 
another, and again he permitted the enemy to carry 
away a number of his guns. There followed the 
recent battles, in which he was driven from the 
base of his operations, sustained a loss of probably 
25,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, left 
behind him a number of siege-guns and several bat- 
teries of field artillery, and lost the camps and 
stores of many divisions of his army. The first 
essential of a line of communication is to be free 
from interruption by the enemy : he is now hemmed 
in between two rivers, and depends for his existence 
upon one of them, which the enemy can interrupt at 
any moment. The south side of the James Eiver 
is entirely in the hands of the Southerners ; it has 
many bluffs and woods running to the water's edge, 
and the Southern generals may any day, when their 
arrangements are complete, open fire from ten or 
twelve batteries and stop transports from ascending. 
In this event M'Clellan must either surrender or 
fall back to the end of the peninsula. It is true he 
might attack Eichmond as an alternative, but an 
army just defeated in spite of its shelter and supe- 
riority in artillery cannot expect to conquer the 
same opponent when the weight of artillery and 
fortified positions would be against it, and defeat 
in such an enterprise would be overwhelming ruin. 
Who, reflecting on these facts, can entertain a 



41 



doubt that the object of this war is unattainable, 
and that all the misery inflicted in America and 
endured here is to no purpose ? The people of the 
North have shown no want of vigour ; it may be 
doubted whether^ under like circumstances, any 
people of Europe could have placed in the field 
such numbers, supplied in such profusion with 
artillery and munitions of war. Their men have 
exhibited a patient endurance of suffering, and a 
courage on the field which none can fail to admire. 
But they have no generals ; these cannot be made 
or contracted for, and war cannot be waged success- 
fully without them. They have men of the utmost 
skill as mechanics, shipbuilders, engineers; they 
excel in all that energy can impel or ingenuity 
contrive. But they have neither a statesman nor a 
general. This great crisis, with everything to draw 
out talent, has not produced a single man of mark. 
Absorbed in other pursuits, the people of the North 
have permitted their government to fall into the hands 
of such a class of men that Mr. Trollope, a most 
favourable witness, tells us that to speak of a person 
as a politician is the same as to speak of him as a 
blackleg. How is a country, so unfortunate as to be 
under such a rule, to conduct to a successful issue 
an undertaking of so great a magnitude and diffi- 
culty that the most experienced and powerful of the 
governments of Europe would have shrunk from the 
attempt ? 

But it may be said that, admitting the disasters 
that have lately attended the Federal cause, they 



42 

are now raising another army, their resources are 
abundant, fortune is fickle in war, and even yet 
they may succeed by perseverance. I admit that, 
although with great difficulty, another army may 
be raised. Let us even suppose that, against all 
probability, it should drive the Southern army out 
of Eichmond. That city is very small in com- 
parison with New Orleans. What effect has the loss 
of the latter had in subduing the South ? On such 
an event the Southern generals would simply fall 
back into the interior of Virginia, into a country as 
strong as the Tyrol, altogether removed from the 
reach of gun-boats, to which the transport of the 
Federals would be through a hostile State. What 
would be the chances of General M'Clellan in con- 
fronting his opponents in such a jDOsition? The 
truth is, the invasion has broken down before the 
real hardships have been experienced, or the real 
strength of the Southern defence has been touched. 
The 300,000 men now called for, if obtained^ will 
render the army no stronger in October than it was 
in March, for that number will have left the ranks 
during the campaign. But they will have a far 
more arduous undertaking : cities are strongly for- 
tified which were then open ; men are burning with 
hostility who were then apathetic; the forces of 
the enemy are concentrated which were then dis- 
persed ; above all, they will have to encounter the 
spirit of a people thoroughly aroused, troops inured 
to battles, and generals to victory. Let any one 
consider what kind of effort he would make rather 



43 

than count as one of a subjugated people^ and he 
will then realize what makes the Southerners 
strong. Nothing but the knowledge that they 
are defending their rights and their liberty could 
have imparted the strength they display. 

The army which the Southern States have now 
in the field is in proportion to their numbers what 
ours would be if a million and a half of men ; and 
they have raised this army where there was not the 
nucleus of a regiment, a company, a squadron, a 
solitary piece of field artillery. They have raised 
men in such numbers where there w^as no dense 
population; they have made powder where there 
were no mills ; they have cast gunS where there 
were no foundries ; they have had to make car- 
tridges without paper, shoes without leather, clothing 
without looms — all this, too, in a country whose 
industry and credit were paralysed, and whose 
intercourse with the rest of the world was suddenly 
shut out. Depressed by many reverses, reduced 
from luxury to the coarsest necessaries of life, 
assailed by ill fortune with great floods, maligned 
by a virulent press, regarded but coldly by those 
from whom they expected aid, unable to tell what 
city might not fall next, and who might not be 
roofless, confronted in the open field by a greater 
power, and threatened by fanaticism with a servile 
war beneath their feet ; it is amidst such difficulties 
as these that they have placed great and gallant 
armies in the field, and exhibited a spirit which 
suffering and danger have only made more resolute. 



44 

Wliat»conclusion is forced upon the mind by these 
facts ? It is that such a people, in possession of so 
vast and difficult a country, cannot be subdued ; in 
other words that they are certain to maintain their 
independence. But the moment this becomes clear, 
and who pretends to doubt it, that moment it 
becomes the duty of the powers of Europe to recog- 
nize their government, and this duty is more espe- 
cially our own. Having the largest interest at 
stake, and exposed to the greatest suffering, it 
is not for us to say to France, '' You lead and we 
will follow." And there are reasons why this 
step should be taken at once for the sake of the 
North as well as the South. 

It may be considered certain that if uninfluenced 
by Europe the North will continue the struggle 
for another year. How indeed are they to end 
it ? Are they to send to Eichmond to admit that 
they are beaten? We indeed see clearly what 
the end must be, but they cannot see through our 
eyes, and their own are blinded with illusions 
and excitement. Besides, as a people they have no 
voice. Who ever hears the sentiments of Phil- 
adelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, or even 
Boston ? The whole country is in abject slavery to 
New York ; and who rules New York ? Not the 
people of New York, but a handful of men, who, as 
they term it in America, *'pull the wires," And 
who compose this handful ? There are some men 
thoroughly sincere but so impelled by excitement as 
to see right or wrong simply as may accord or conflict 



45 



with their desires. Have we not seen good ingenious 
men in the same mental condition, inventors, per- 
petual motionists, ready to go through fire and water 
for what all the rest of the world know to be a delu- 
sion ? In addition to these there are schemers, con- 
tractors, stock-jobbers — men who have made vast 
fortunes by the war, or hope to make them, or who 
would be ruined by the return of peace. And New 
York has an interest of her own in continuing the 
struggle. She has grown great on the Southern trade. 
It is not breadstuff's that built those palaces in the 
Fifth Avenue. She has an interest entirely apart 
from that of the Northern people as a whole, and 
this self-interest will lead her to go on. And what 
is likely to be the result to the North of a con- 
tinuance of the war for another year ? At present 
the debt is enormous, yet by reducing the interest 
it might be possible to endure it ; in another year it 
would reach a point that must involve either repu- 
diation or bankruptcy. Up to this time the rowdy 
population has mainly fed the war, in future the 
real American must go down to those shambles. 
Now the North is united and would remain a 
power of the first magnitude and importance ; 
it may begin to divide, for its interests are not 
like those of the South, homogeneous^ but on 
the contrary are conflicting, and it may break up 
into pieces like Central America. At present, too, 
terms of peace might be demanded, at the end of 
another year they may be imposed. 
All this" is known to numbers of men in the 



46 

North, and expressed in letters reaching this 
country. There are numbers praying for peace 
and imploring a move in Europe, but what can they 
do ? Who is to speak out when the next man calls 
him a traitor, and the next day may find him on 
the way to Fort Warren ? What could any rational 
man say that might not be called '' aid and 
comfort " to the enemy, and that is treason ? The 
truth is, the peace party in the North are dumb and 
powerless because they have no pivot, no point to 
rally upon. The recognition of the South would 
afford this rallying point. That which gives 
strength to the Northern effort is the belief, the 
delusion, that they are really fighting to put down 
rebellion. This theory supports them with the 
strength of a principle. But so soon as the inde- 
pendence of the South is acknowledged by the 
leading powers of Europe, the scales will fall from 
their eyes. All reasonable men will say, '' What is 
the use of our calling men rebels whom the rest of 
the world acknowledges as citizens of a separate and 
formidable power ? We shall only make ourselves 
ridiculous by pursuing that farther, and we shall 
only ruin our country, swamp it with debt, or 
crumble it into pieces by going on longer with this 
war." 

Let no one confound the idea of recognition with 
that of intervention. Intervention is an act of 
force, an act of war, which, as a matter of course, the 
Notth would resist. When they assert that they 
will resist it with all their might, it is simply 



47 

saying that if we go to war with them they will go 
to war with us. No writer in this country has 
proposed anything of this kind. Mediation, on the 
other hand, is an act of peace, of friendly interest 
and good-will : an act which very frequently termi- 
nates a war. The war with this country of 1814 
was terminated by the mediation of Eussia, acting 
as the friend, and at the request of America. But 
we cannot mediate except there be two parties, and 
even then both must assent. It is, therefore, not 
an act within our own reach. Recognition is 
within our reach ; it is an act, as we have seen, 
perfectly compatible with neutrality — one against 
which no action can be taken, no argument can be 
raised, and the moral effect of which upon the 
money-market, the peace party, and the minds of 
all would probably terminate the war. 

Why should we procrastinate ? Winter will not 
procrastinate, nor the hunger of hundreds of thou- 
sands. The last Poor Law Keturn shows within 
certain districts 141,560 paupers, and these, as 
representing the usual average of three persons, 
give 424,680 souls now in beggary. That return, 
too, shows an increase of 1,760 paupers, or 5,280 
souls in the previous week, and this will now go on 
at an accelerating rate. Even this represents but a 
part of the misery ; and those who doubt this may 
read the account of the poor widow who died last 
week in London of absolute starvation rather than 
beg. Are we to shrink from trouble or evade 
responsibility with this before us ? the existence of 



r 



48 

the famishing, the welfare of commerce, the claims 
of humanity, the laws of nations, the interests of 
America, all demand our decision. Beyond all, it 
is our duty. We have no right to say to the 
people of the South, " We know you have an 
established government, but we decline to own the 
knowledge ; we see you are independent, but it is 
our policy to be blind ; we witness your gallant effort 
for self-government, and are certain of your success, 
but waste another hundred thousand lives, im- 
poverish yourselves still more, and at some quite 
convenient season we will acknowledge you." 
Instead of this, our duty is to say, " We have just 
acknowledged, and at once, the jight of Tuscans and 
Neapolitans to change their government when they 
deemed it esssential to their happiness to do so. 
We cannot dispute the same right with those of our 
own kin. Justice requires us to take the same 
course in America as in Europe, holding in respect 
the wishes of a people in preference to the claims of 
discarded governments, and it requires us without 
fear or favour to recognize as a fact what all the 
world knows to be a fact — that the Southern States 
are now a distinct community or nation, with an 
organized government, in conformity with their will, 
and a power that entitles them to respect as well as 
recognition." 



LONDON : PRrNTED BT ^. CLOWES AKD PONS, STAMFORD STREET AM) CHARIXG CROSS. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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